11/11/2015 Whither Network Science? Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Polytechnic University Brooklyn, NY Shivendra S. Panwar A cross-cultural approach

2 Does Network Science Exist?  Yes History:About 40 years since the creation of ARPANET, long history of achievements Specific impacts: Teletraffic theory, network optimization, switching theory, multiple access networks, protocols research,…  No Not a coherent science Not associated with a single academic discipline or department No agreed upon component subjects No widely agreed upon name In spite of specific impacts, limited overall impact

3 Crisis in Networks Research 1  Decline of industrial R&D Labs These bridged the divide between theory and implementation Theoretical researchers in industry R&D units worked with implementers to design new products and services Academic researchers took cues from them for further research to gain new insights and results. Academic research also created brand new paradigms which were picked up by industry Start-ups as a solution? Yes and No

4 Crisis in Networks Research 2  Decline in academic research Supply side:  Shrinking worldwide supply of grad students  Competition from new “hot” areas  Residue of burst bubble Demand side:  Decline of demand for industry researchers (except in China and India)  Saturation of positions in academic research  Symptom: Rise in the number of candidate’s in post-doctoral positions before an academic job becomes available

5 Crisis in Networks Research 3  Fragmentation because of “silo”-based research Theorists: Applied mathematicians (operations research, applied probability, graph theory, theory of algorithms, …) Experimentalists/Designers: hardware, software, system implementations … These two “cultures” are also present in other scientific disciplines, e.g., physics, computer science. Symptoms  Different flavors of conferences, e.g.,SIGCOMM versus INFOCOM  NSF panels  Funding initiatives – GENI  Textbooks  Flawed research

6 How Do We Fix It?  Educational: Creation of comprehensive and integrated educational programs - Is it time to create Communication Network Science and Engineering (CNSE) departments? This will create the need for a common “ core ” program and a new generation of textbooks Courses will focus both on theory and implementation/design

7 How Do We Fix It?  Research: Need to keep best features of centralized industrial R&D model, e.g., Bell Labs Bring theorists and implementers/experimenters together on long term projects Continue silo-based research, but also encourage collaboration Positive example: cross-layer optimization

8 Desired Outcome  The fragmentation issue will be greatly ameliorated  This will lead to a cadre of better trained graduate students with a well rounded education at an earlier stage of their careers  A new generation of researchers who will help further define the science of networks  Will also help in arresting (somewhat) the decline in academic research and (to a lesser extent) industry.

9 Let the debate begin! Shivendra S. Panwar Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Polytechnic University Brooklyn, NY